...from where you come from

thank you spelman, for shifting my perspective. sometime last week, i had tea with a co-worker. she's a cool enough girl. we were talking and for one reason or another she mentioned a friend from college whom she never told she had a crush. said he was south african and she loved his accent and he was soooo cute. i'm like, okay, she diverse wit hers - that's cool. she starts runnin' it down like, "tall, dark, dirty blonde hair, bright blue eyes.".... i don't think we're in atlanta anymore, toto. it's a different world, for real. but i was glad that i automatically thought a black man. i'm glad i put we in the center. of course in retrospect i cannot be upset ( i can be annoyed, of course) because we have african descend everybody else. i remember an entire summer program dedicated to the study of the black british in london. it just caught me off guard.

i been picking up wedding planning guides and magazines and books and whatnot. (publishers get over like fat rats, man. one bridal magazine - ten dollars. needless to say i just read them at the library). i told my immediate family and trying to pull together my artistic resources. this is about to be design on a dime fo' real, but it will be fly nonetheless (that's the plan). i'm probably gonna bug jay like hell (no pun intended) before it's all over, but he's a trooper (again, none intended). the teeny pomp and tiny circumstance, i realize, is not the most important thing. what happens when the smoke clears is the real stuff, but i don't play dress up often so i think i'll indulge myself this time.

went to my first opera on friday (opera house within walking distance + free tickets from a co-worker who couldn't go = one fabulously free night out). it was almost as good as it was long. in french. a fairly mixed cast. great music, and not to take anything away from the leading lady (who did a very good job) but Dorothy Dandridge will forever be the quintessential CARMEN in my mind's eye....after the show, an acquaintance and i checked out this spot called "balanca's and balanca's pyro room." (guess i was feeling adventurous?) it was a little too smoky and too local for my taste; honestly, if the people inside weren't drinking/drunk, they wouldn't have been enjoying themselves either. and there was a five dollar cover ($5 more than i would usually spend), but there was value in it. before, when i would pass this spot walking home from work i would never go in -now, i know why.

i am soooo in love with lizz wright right now. her album, "dreaming wide awake" (i'm not sure if it's the latest one), is in heavy rotation in my space like no other. i described her sound on this album to a friend saying, "it's like norah jones meets anita baker," which i stand by but she's distinctly her own artist, without a doubt. i share this at the risk of being the only one who didn't know, but i got to cause she's so serious. here's just a whiff: "wake up, wake up little sparrow/ don't make your home out in the snow/ don't make your home out in the snow// little bird, don't you know? your friends flew south many months ago." now imagine an alto tone dipped in honey with acoustic guitar in the back....yep.

in honor of the shooter's return, i'mma close this livejournal like -

mood: pleased
music: "dreaming wide awake" [in my head, of course, this is a library you know]